The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the international community’s silence towards the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) escalating policy of systematic destruction of hospitals and health facilities in northern Gaza Strip. Over the past days, IOF have destroyed and forced all governmental hospitals in northern Gaza Strip to go out of service. The latest IOF’s attacks on northern Gaza Strip’s hospital occurred today at dawn when they targeted the Non-Governmental Al-Awda Hospital, the only hospital that is still operating and providing health services to hundreds of thousands of residents in the area. PCHR asserts that the IOF’s continued targeting of hospitals in northern Gaza is part of a broader policy that aligns with the forced evacuation orders they simultaneously issued for many areas across the northern Gaza Strip. This policy aims to accelerate the depopulation of northern Gaza, which has now been left without t hospitals or relief centers, depriving residents of essential means of survival and turning the North governorate into an unlivable zone through imposing siege and launching intense airstrikes and artillery shelling on residential areas. These IOF’s actions constitute a continuation of the crime of genocide ongoing for 19 months.

According to a statement issued by the Al-‘Awda Health and Community Association, ¹ at 02:00 on Thursday, 22 May 2025, Israeli tanks that had surrounded al-‘Awda Hospital in northern Gaza directly targeted the hospital’s Specialized Surgery Department and medicine warehouse. The attack ignited a fire in the warehouse, which medical crews were unable to extinguish due to the IOF’s ongoing gunfire. It also destroyed the hospital’s water and fuel tanks and caused extensive damage to its infrastructure. The Israeli tanks then stormed the hospital courtyards, set fire to the outpatient clinic tents, and injured several medical personnel and volunteers. The Association stated that 130 of its staff and volunteers continue to provide medical care to patients and the wounded inside the hospital under extremely dangerous conditions. This attack comes just two days after a similar assault on the Indonesian Hospital, which was rendered out of service after its generators and fuel tanks were bombed, causing a complete power outage amid a lack of alternatives and essential oils and spare parts needed to operate electrical systems in hospitals across northern Gaza.²

PCHR reiterates that IOF’s repeated targeting of civilian health facilities constitutes a serious violation of the international humanitarian law, particularly Articles 18 and 19 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which grant special protection for hospitals. It also violates Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which criminalizes attacks on protected medical facilities. Furthermore, the IOF’s systematic targeting of healthcare facilities falls under Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, which prohibits “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” including the denial of basic health services.

PCHR believes that the international community’s ongoing silence towards the crimes committed against the Palestinian population in Gaza, particularly the systematic crimes against the healthcare system and its facilities, is complicity that encourages the IOF to go further with their destructive policies without any deterrence. Moreover, the prevailing impunity granted for the perpetrators of these crimes undermines the international legal system and threatens the principles of justice and peace in the region and worldwide.

In light of the complete collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system and putting all hospitals and healthcare centers in northern Gaza out of service, which poses  a direct threat to the lives of thousands of wounded and patients, PCHR reiterates its call upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to take immediate and tangible action to stop these serious violations, provide urgent protection for hospitals and medical personnel, and guarantee the immediate flow of medical supplies, fuel and humanitarian aid without any delay.

PCHR stresses the urgent need to dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry to document the crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. It also calls for deterrent international measures against those responsible for these crimes, including the imposition of sanctions and the suspension of any support that could contribute to the continuation of this aggression.

1. Statement issued by Al-‘Awda Health and Community Association, link: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16LsyGs1cG/ ↩︎
2. Statement issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, link:   https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EFxxzf2at/ ↩︎